After all, one of the biggest creative advantages of an electronic kit is the ability to incorporate wildly different sonic colors whenever the spirit moves you. Just because a sound is in the “effect” category doesn’t mean it can’t make a killer cymbal. Do you hear a one-dimensional quality as you change dynamics (only softer or louder) or does the tonal quality change depending on your dynamic (brighter, warmer, thicker, and so on)? Can you hear when multisamples switch from one to the other, or is the transition smooth? As you listen, try to determine whether a sound might be good for a musical style or character other than what the manufacturer suggests. As you go through each sound, listen to how it responds to various playing dynamics. The kit’s manufacturer might group sounds into a number of categories based on sonic qualities or musical styles. You could make notes in the manual or create a computer database for future reference. Depending on the number of available sounds, you could possibly keep mental notes, but I find it much easier to write down some information about the sound set. Now is the perfect time to start listening, evaluating, classifying, and qualifying your options. Some kits have just a few basic drum and cymbal sounds, while others have hundreds of different percussive and instrumental colors to feed your creative desires. Generally speaking, more triggering parameters go hand-in-hand with more sophisticated kits (sophisticated means “expensive”).Įvery e-kit contains a collection of onboard sounds. Not all e-kits contain a large number of trigger adjustments, though. For even more control of volume, you could experiment with minimum and maximum velocity levels. Depending on your e-kit, you can set velocity curves to respond in a linear, exponential, logarithmic, S-curve, or even inverted manner. If you’re generally a light player or a heavy player, you can change the velocity curves to give you more or less control over the volume of the sounds in relation to your playing strength. Unlike with acoustic instruments, you’re not locked into a 1:1 relationship between stroke strength and dynamic. Setting your velocity curves will determine how your drums and cymbals will respond to your playing dynamics. If you need to fine-tune how the instruments respond to your lightest strokes, the sensitivity or threshold adjustments will take care of this. Crosstalk controls help prevent the triggering of one instrument when you play another instrument. Even if your new e-kit comes as a matched set of pads and brain, you may want to experiment with the settings for pad type and trigger gain. Chances are good, however, that the suit and your kit will fit you better when fashioned to order.Ī number of various factors come into play when adjusting your kit. It’s possible that all of the settings will fit you perfectly right out of the box, as even an off-the-rack suit will fit some folks without any tailoring. This is perhaps the most important aspect of setting up your new e-kit, so you’ll never have to say, “I don’t like the way the damn thing feels!” Just as you would take care in cleaning and tuning the heads on your acoustic instruments, if you want to play your very best, you’ll need to adjust how your instrument responds to your touch and playing style. With the instruments closer together, less physical energy is required to move from one surface to another. On the other hand, if you’re thinking of going totally electronic, you might be able to play beats and fills that would be more difficult on acoustic drums by putting the instruments in a tighter configuration. Perhaps just adding an external clamp with a boom arm or additional tilter will give you the perfect placement. Maybe the solution to accurate cymbal positioning is to change out the upper pipe from another crash cymbal stand. Or try reversing their orientation so that they hold the instrument outside of the rack rather than inside. You might be able to turn the tom mounts upside-down and hang the instrument from the descending posts. If the rack and mounts don’t allow you to get the exact same placement and angles, try thinking outside of the box. If you plan to use your e-kit as a practice instrument, then you should try to duplicate the physical position of your acoustic drums as closely as possible.
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